


Ashes

by JustAnotherWriter (N1ghtshade)



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Alex lives, Angst, But this isn't happy folks, Gen, No happy ending here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 06:30:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14994869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/N1ghtshade/pseuds/JustAnotherWriter
Summary: When he wakes up, the epicenter of destruction, he's alone.





	Ashes

**Author's Note:**

> So this is what happens when I watch X-Men Apocalypse for the fifth time and the plot bunnies bite…

“All will be revealed, my child.” Those are the last words he hears before the world is a blaze of heat and light and pain, pain, _pain_ and everything is red. And then everything is black.

***

Alex wakes up, naked and hurting everywhere it’s possible to hurt, alone in the burning rubble of the ruined mansion. There’s stone and wood and ash all around him. He can smell fire, and the scorched ozone smell that comes from his powers.

“Ah-ugh.” He coughs, because his throat feels ripped apart and he’s breathing in the thick black smoke. He needs to get up, get out of here. He needs to get to Charles, because it looks like that purple maniac decided just taking their leader wasn’t good enough… _Oh god. Oh god_.

This is his fault. That deranged mutant didn’t blow up the school. Alex did. He vaguely remembers Hank screaming “no!”. He didn’t think. He didn’t think and the place is _destroyed_. And there's no one else here. No survivors.

“Hello?” _Someone, anyone, please answer me._ The whole house is gone. Alex can see the sky and he was in the sub-basement. _Please, some of them have to have made it out._ But nothing comes back to him but the birdcalls.

He stumbles to his feet and looks around, hoping maybe someone will be there. _Maybe they passed out from the smoke._ He doesn’t want to think that maybe anyone who got out was so badly injured they’re dead. He doesn’t want to see more scorched bodies, more shredded limbs. _I thought I left that behind me in ‘Nam._ There’s no one. Nothing. Just ash-covered grass and scattered rock.

Alex drops to his knees in the ruin, stomach clenching, puking until he’s shaking and gasping. _They were all still inside. None of them made it out. Not even…Not even Scott._ He killed his own little brother. _Oh god._ Scott was supposed to be safe here. And now it’s Alex’s fault he’s dead. _I can’t go home. I can’t ever go back and tell them I did this._

It’s all his fault. Charles, even if he by some miracle survives this, won’t want Alex back either. This school, those children, they were his life. He'll be crushed that they were killed in his care. He told their families he would protect them. That at the school they'd be safe from people who wanted to harm them. And then Alex ruined everything. Just like he always does. He got Darwin killed because he was showing off, trying to be some kind of hero. And that was bad enough. Now he's killed a school full of innocent kids who sure as hell didn't sign up for this. 

If Charles already knows, and he must know because he'll have felt it, _felt them all die in an inferno someone he trusted created_ , he'll see that Alex is still that stupid impulsive boy who wants to be something he doesn't deserve to be. He was trying to be a hero again. He should have known better.

Alex starts to cry in a way he hasn’t since his powers first manifested. He doesn’t want to be this monster, this killer. He hates his powers. After all this time, after he thought he learned to control them, he’s still nothing better than the angry boy in the alley who got his back against the wall and lashed out with something he didn’t even know he had. He was lying to himself all this time. Alex Summers isn’t a hero. He never was. All Alex Summers has ever been is a killer. A force of destruction. And he can’t even have the small mercy of dying with his friends. No. He has to live with this guilt.

People said ‘Nam was hell. They were wrong. This, this is hell.

***

He doesn’t remember much about the rest of that day. He doesn’t remember where he found the clothes that are too large for him and smell like someone wrapped a salami in them. He doesn’t remember walking as far as he can from the nearest town, but his feet are blistered and raw from the asphalt so he must have walked. He doesn’t remember when it started to rain, but it is, now, cold and steady and hard. 

He does remember setting a few of the less badly burned stones from the mansion into a small pile near where the door used to be. The best memorial he can leave for everyone. They were heroes. They deserved better. They were kids. They should have lived.

All he can hope for now is that when the world ends, _that_ will kill him. Without Charles, without the X-Men, what chance do they have? He should be there, maybe he should die fighting, but he can’t bear to see the disappointment in Charles’s eyes because he’ll see Alex’s mind and he’ll know.

“You don’t control it. It controls you.” Charles was right all along, even if he never wanted to be. All Havok has ever been capable of is destruction. The world will be safer when he’s far away from anyone he can hurt. Charles let Alex in, tried to help him, and how has Alex repaid him? Destroying everything the man has ever worked for and dumping the guilt of losing all those children on him as well.

In the back of his mind, somewhere, he knows all Charles would do, if Alex ever had the nerve to drag himself back to that place to face the man again, would be to look at him sadly and promise to try and help him. But he'd almost rather be shouted at, cursed, even tortured, than pitied. He doesn't deserve pity, not after what he's done. 

_Never a hero. You were only ever a killer._

**Author's Note:**

> Just to clarify, this is only AU in that Alex lived. The others aren’t dead, but since they got snatched by Stryker, Alex can’t find them and assumes the worst.


End file.
